(Yeah, yeah, I know: I could have set
Calvin against Jacobus Arminius. But where’s the fun in that? Also, Arminius was not as extreme in his views as
some Calvinists would make him out to be.)

Eriksson’s view is as clear and simple as
Calvin’s. One ultimate cause: Me. My will, my choice. And just like Calvin and
the Reformed congregations that propagate his philosophy today, lots of people
are fans of Eriksson’s take.

But nothing is that simple.

It Was From the Lord

For the pagan, no proof of his own ability
to create and control his own world is required. He merely asserts it and to
him it is so. So I won’t waste a lot of time arguing with Charlotte Eriksson.
Something she can’t control will prove her wrong eventually. Cancer, maybe. One
hopes not.

But those who hold to Calvin’s dictum about
“all events whatsoever” being governed by the secret counsel of God must wonder
(assuming they observe such things) why the writers of scripture constantly make
distinctions like this one:

“But Samson said to his father, ‘Get her
for me, for she is right in my eyes.’ His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines.”

Aha, says the Calvinist triumphantly, “It
was from the Lord! You see?”

He doesn’t harden all hearts at all times. He
is not in every instance the reason rulers do not listen to their people. He is
not actively and personally responsible for every delusion under heaven. If he
did and if he were, then the phrase “This was from God” and its equivalents
would be so hopelessly redundant that no writer of scripture would bother to
employ them.

The obvious inference drawn by any mind not
absolutely conditioned to see determinism always and everywhere is that direct interventions by God in the affairs of man are exceptional, not
normative.

Right in My Eyes

That’s not so simple. And the writer of
Samson’s story tells us the Philistine wife was Samson’s choice as well as God’s.
“She is right in my eyes,” he told his parents.

So both statements are true. Samson made a bad
choice because he saw a girl who attracted him. Who hasn’t done the same? And
God both anticipated Samson’s bad choice and used his choice as part of his
larger purpose.

Perhaps God even singled out Samson’s
particular genetic package prior to his birth precisely because it carried with
it the propensity for the chaos and bad choice-making for which Samson is primarily
known. And supposing Samson had managed to conquer this particular
instance of lust through self-control and conscious obedience to God, it’s very
possible he would later have fallen prey to a similar temptation about which it
could equally be said, “It was from the Lord”.

All of that may be easily conceded by those
of us who reject Calvin’s “all events whatsoever” thesis.

More Complicated Than It Appears

But to make God approve of Samson’s choice — to make God initiate that choice, or to aver that Samson’s sin itself was God’s will and not just the sin’s
consequences — is to go well beyond what scripture actually says here. Did
the Lord need to make Samson sin to
accomplish his will? He surely did not.

The reality is simply more complicated than
it appears at first glance.

We should not be satisfied with easy answers.
Perhaps it would even be prudent to recognize that many of the answers lie beyond
the capacity of some (or all) of us to resolve at all.